Mark Bao tracks down his stolen laptop and has the last laugh - <AUTHOR> http://www.switched.com/2011/03/22/mark-bao-tracks-laptop-thief/ <comment><AUTHOR> "The thief has since returned the laptop, in hopes of clemency in the form of the YouTube video being pulled. Bao has indicated, though, that he's not interested in cutting a deal. Instead, he's content using backup service Backblaze—which syncs changes made to the laptop in the cloud—to find access the guy's Facebook page, dig up PhotoBooth pictures he took, and generally let him stew in his internet humiliation for a while." \- [http://gizmodo.com/#!5784633/laptop-thiefs-ridiculous- dance-...](http://gizmodo.com/#!5784633/laptop-thiefs-ridiculous-dance-video- posted-by-tech+savvy-victim)

Now he's just turned it into a plug for his startup. Smart guy.

<comment><USER2> Doing that would be very much illegal in Germany. Isn't it in the US?

<comment><USER3> Even if it was by the letter of the law, it wouldn't be by the application of the law. What's on the books is not what matters in practice. You need a prosecutor willing to press charges. Considering the circumstances, I doubt a prosecutor would press charges.

Of course, the thief could always sue, but even that's a hard sell.

<comment><USER2> Why would the thief suing be a hard sell? If it's really becoming a problem for him paying a lawyer some money to file the necessary paperwork would be no problem.

<comment><USER3> It would be a hard sell to a judge or jury. A prospective lawyer will know this, and may not want to sink time (and/or money) into it. You can sue someone for just about anything, but that doesn't mean you'll win.

<comment><USER2> But why? That would never be the case in Germany. A personality rights violation is a personality rights violation. A thief doesn't lose those rights just because he is a thief.

I cannot for the life of me imagine that the US judiciary is that unprofessional.

<comment><USER3> First, I don't think there was any violation of this person's rights by US law. Second, judges and juries are people, not automatons that blindly apply law. Considering the circumstances, I have a hard time believing a judge or a jury would think that the thief deserves a monetary reward.

<comment><USER2> Nah, not a monetary reward, just getting the video taken down. I don't think the thief would get some sort of monetary reward in Germany, either.

<comment><USER3> That's the only tangible outcome that would come from suing the person who uploaded it. Getting money for "damages" is the only reason to sue the individual, in this case.

If you want the video taken down, it would be more direct to go after YouTube. In this case, the individual isn't really the "publisher," YouTube is. You probably wouldn't even need to sue YouTube, you could probably go through the "inappropriate content" channel.

<comment><USER4> He can probably just do a simple DMCA takedown. He made the video, so he owns the copyright. Even better -- just turn on monetization and buy a new laptop in a week.

<comment><USER5> He doesn't necessarily own a video he made using someone else's equipment, especially if he didn't compensate the owner of the equipment for its use. If you don't produce intellectual property on your own time and with your own equipment, your full ownership of what you produce is not a given.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As someone who's had plenty of things stolen in the past, these stories make me happy.

The vengeful part of me hopes this jerk gets laughed out of every job interview he ever has for being the guy who stole the computer and had his dancing video put on youtube.

<comment><USER7> I didn't dig deep into the story, but I'm guessing that a guy who records himself dancing around like a jackass probably doesn't have too many job interviews - and the ones he does have are probably not with people who read about news items like this.

<comment><USER8> What kind of unnecessary elitism is this exactly?

<comment><USER9> Dancing is for unemployed people!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> as an update, he got his laptop back (thief turned it in, perhaps because he knew he was caught). because he now has 2 airs, he's going to auction off the original and donate proceeds to japan efforts.

</comment><comment><USER11> I absolutely hate this sort of vigilantism. How does anybody know that the guy in the video is actually the guy that stole the laptop? How do we know that he isn't just some guy who bought it on craigslist?

<comment><USER12> I'm obviously biased by visiting HN, but buying any computer used that has not been wiped is a sure indication that it is stolen. I'd like to give the guy the benefit of the doubt as well, but there is ample indication in this article alone that he either has no clue about technology and the responsibility of buying one used or was the one that stole it.

If it turns out he bought it legitimately without knowledge of it being stolen that's fine, but he still should have been turned on to the fact it's filled with someone else's crap and the username is not his. Ignorance is no excuse, even though it may be commonplace.

<comment><USER13> I've sold two (broken) laptops and didn't wipe anything, and sold a working iPod Touch without deleting anything. Also, in most of my experience with non- technical friends, they usually don't wipe their computers. So no need to assume...

<comment><USER14> Really? Did you sell them to people you trust?

Personally I just don't sell hard drives. They get destroyed. I don't have anything illegal or immoral on there, I just figure, I've had financial info on there, pictures, etc, and who knows what somebody else might do with that.

<comment><USER13> Nope, just strangers. I'm very trusting, though of course I deleted internet data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> On the stolen laptop theme, I recently saw a youtube video by an Australian chap which went like this:

Tenant/house-guest (who is wanted for fraud in several states) ran off, leaving several thousand dollars in rent in arrears and in the process stealing three laptops.

FAB (the victim) gets some reports from friends a couple of weeks later that the perp is staying in a nearby motel. FAB goes around early-ish in the morning, knocks of the perps door, and the perp opens the door and the discussion gets heated. FAB is 'forced to defend himself' _cough_ and after he finishes bouncing the perps head off the walls and is waiting for the police and ambulance to arrive (perp is un/semi-conscious), eh enters the motel room, recognises the three laptops, and puts them in the boot of his car.

Police arrive. Ambo turns up and hauls perp off to hospital. Police insist that FAB give the laptops to the motel manager, and they tell the motel manager to await further instructions.

Later that day perp checks himself out of hospital, goes back to motel, asks for laptops, manager gives them to him, and then high-tails it off to Victoria (the other end of Australia).

Moral of the story: police are useless no matter what country you are in.

<comment><USER16> As an aussie I can't say I'm surprised. The police hardly have time for a stolen car anymore, let alone a laptop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Mark should try to hack it so it broadcasts live without the thief's knowledge. It could be a huge inside joke where nobody tells him, kind of like The Truman Show.

<comment><USER7> I wonder what the legality of profiting off something like that would be.

<comment><USER18> donate to japan

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Ultimately, the same sort of self-help Mark has used for recovery could be used by criminals for identity-theft against others.

How? Preload a cheap laptop with software to let you monitor it. (This could be made way more sophisticated, and hard to eradicate, than a online backup subscription.) Leave it somewhere to be stolen. Monitor its later use for information that could allow stealing many times the initial laptop value from its later users. (Those later users may in some instances be the laptop thief, but could more often be others who thought they were buying a cheap used laptop.)

This is a good reason to beware deals that seem too good to be true, when purchasing used computer goods.

<comment><USER20> This doesn't make much sense. Why not just sell the laptop, instead of allowing it to be stolen?

<comment><USER19> If you sold a bunch of laptops like this, and _every_ buyer gets their bank/credit compromised, you'd be found.

Allowing them to distribute via theft gives superior untraceability at scale, though it means the people receiving the laptops might not be as 'fat' targets as people who buy laptops through traceable transactions.

<comment><USER21> Actually, I think this describes the business model behind many of the software products that are pre-loaded onto laptops before they're sold. I.e. bloatware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The detective work reminds me of an old great (p-p-p-powerbook):

<http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/>

<comment><USER23> Unfortunately, that story has a rather bad ending[1], but I guess most people don't read that far.

 _"Finally, and most disturbingly, Jeff was not heard from again. I personally e-mailed him for permission to run his story on ZUG, but after an initial response, I never heard from him again. All of his Web sites have come down, and he is nowhere to be found."_

[1] <http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/index04.html>

<comment><USER24> It appears that he's alive:

<http://www.myspace.com/iameljefe> <http://twitter.com/mynameisjeff>

<comment><USER25> Being on myspace hardly qualifies one as "alive" ... it may even indicate the contrary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I tracked down a stolen laptop using Prey (<http://preyproject.com/>) and Live Mesh's remote desktop. Upon having the laptop stolen, Prey notified my it was online. I remote connected, installed a keylogger and used that along with Prey's camera images to identify the thief and have the person arrested.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is the perfect situation where Prey (open source), would have come in handy: <http://preyproject.com/>

</comment><comment><USER28> I preferred the story of Zoz. He provides a detailed explanation of how he recovered his lost Mac. [http://hackaday.com/2010/12/25/a-hackers-marginal- security-h...](http://hackaday.com/2010/12/25/a-hackers-marginal-security- helps-return-stolen-computer/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Am I the only one that thinks that this could be a contrived story?

<comment><USER30> As I said above, I can absolutely vouch for the veracity of this story. I talked to Mark the day he got his laptop stolen, and I was talking to him when he realized that it was still backing up to Backblaze.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Mark needs to do my PR. He always seems to find a way to get into the news.

</comment><comment><USER32> Here is a similar video cum presentation ( and its better in my opinion ) :

Defcon 18 : Pwned by the owner - What happens when you steal a hackers computer -- zoz part <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4oB28ksiIo>

The Presentation is really funny, but some may find the "invasion of privacy" a little disturbing. Its kinda on the extreme side ( warned! ) but is very informative and funny nonetheless.

<comment><USER18> I've seen this before, epic, well worth a watch. man likes booty

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Why is it #1 HN entry? It's a sincere question.

</comment><comment><USER8> "Don't steal computers belonging to people who know how to use computers"

Implying using a data sync service turns one into one of the chosen few who "know how to use computers".

</comment><comment><USER34> It'd be nice to know why the guy captured on video is in fact the _theif_ (and say not someone who got the laptop off Craigslist).

</comment><comment><USER35> Best cloud backup sales pitch ever! Then again, I wonder how much data gets stolen from badly-designed cloud apps.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm not sure Mark is the smarter one in this one. If the thief has been able to auto log-in as him and fill his browser history, this probably means that he can also read Mark's history and the rest of his home directory is lying there unencrypted, with his identity wide exposed.

</comment><comment><USER37> This happened to me with a cabbie! I tracked mine down through web history as well.

A friend made a short radio story about it: [http://thebarkandthebite.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/cab- for...](http://thebarkandthebite.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/cab-for-web.mp3)

</comment><comment><USER38> "The best part is that the person currently in possession of Bao's machine has no idea that the victim has access. For now, Bao's just having his "lulz," and doesn't seem terribly concerned with reclaiming his property."

This is not true.

The thief has offered an "apology" of sorts: [http://bostinnovation.com/2011/03/23/dont-steal-a- computer-f...](http://bostinnovation.com/2011/03/23/dont-steal-a-computer- from-a-nerd-and-record-yourself-making-it-rain)

And Mark Bao has his laptop back and "plans to sell the returned Apple and donate the proceeds to the Red Cross Japan fund." [http://blogs.forbes.com/kashmirhill/2011/03/22/to-catch-a- co...](http://blogs.forbes.com/kashmirhill/2011/03/22/to-catch-a-computer- predator/)

</comment><comment><USER39> What the hell. I was hoping that this wouldn't hit Hacker News and was satisfied until I woke up this morning. :p

I'm actually slightly embarrassed that this is on Hacker News right now.

<comment><USER40> Yeah, after you posted a video of the guy on YouTube, you're the one who's embarrassed. You hate publicity that much, huh? Does anyone else not buy this?

<comment><USER39> I'm embarrassed because this is the second time that I did something that, to me, was trivial, and it gets a bunch of press and hits Hacker News.

I'm embarrassed because there is a disproportionality between {interesting things that I do} and {dumb things that I do that somehow get a ton of press} and I feel like doing the stuff in the latter category (and getting publicized about it on HN) bins me in a category of people who do trivial and noninteresting things.

And I'm embarrassed because an article about PG is currently second to this one.

I don't hate publicity. I only do when it's for stuff like this and it's on HN, which I think should be for more intelligent news than this.

<comment><USER41> It's a funny hacking story and perfect for HN. Plus, as you can see with that your name is written out -- it's about someone most of us here know, or at least know of.

Mark, you've got a star over your head. That's a great thing to have and this kind of thing is something that comes with it, so start learning not to sweat it.

<comment><USER42> yes, but look at how many people on this thread have accused Mark of being a fame-whore and maybe even faking this whole incident just for publicity. I can't speak for Mark, but I doubt that this is the kind of publicity that he's looking for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is way overblown. A guy steals a laptop and gets caught red-handed so you post a video to embarass him.

He's lucky he didn't get his hand cut off like in other countries.

</comment><comment><USER44> Swedish thieves send you a backup. <http://bit.ly/ha6dmq>

</comment><comment><USER45> Why is it that the last comment on every blog that features this story calls it a hoax?

</comment><comment><USER13> Mark Bao has really not made a single mistake in his PR execution. I have to congratulate him and learn from him, as others here have also said.

</comment><comment><USER46> That is some epic revenge there. Kudos to the victim!

</comment><comment><USER47> Three words for the thief: Wrong victim. DANCE!

</comment><comment><USER48> The thief could also very easily find Mark, punch his face out and see who has the last "lulz"

<comment><USER49> And then go to jail for even a longer time. I don't doubt that it could happen, but it would be a pretty stupid plan.

<comment><USER50> Criminals aren't usually known for their intelligence and foresight and by definition they don't operate under the same code of ethics as most people. I imagine also in some circles your first trip to the joint is a rite of passage. So unless you know who you are dealing with it makes sense to take a cautious approach to any response to criminal behavior you make on your own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> when i told a friend about this he said

"35 pass erase followed by OSX on a portable drive, resell immediately at a good distance for a good keep quite discount"

when i responded with

"what about some kind of advanced government software or computer forensics kit"

his rebuttal

"only going to get you if its laden with child porn"

i chuckled</comment>


Neural ODE's: Understanding how they model data - <AUTHOR> https://jontysinai.github.io/jekyll/update/2019/01/18/understanding-neural-odes.html <comment><USER2> The diagrams here really helped to explain neural ODEs in an intuitive fashion. Does anyone know the best library that implements them so I can play around in an iPyNB? :-)

<comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18979541](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18979541) shows (with code) how to build and train neural ODEs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Looks fantastic. Also appreciate the feedback from parent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems like it will be hard to get it to work in Tensorflow, because it needs to compute the gradient in an unusual way, which afaik don't play nice with the existing architecture.

My guess is it will need some deep wizardry of the same kind as OpenAI gradient check-pointing.

Neural ODE, is a nice trick to reduce the memory usage to O(1) instead of O(nb timesteps). But the implementation cost and complexity cost probably mean we are better using gradient check-pointing on a forward dynamic and pay the memory cost.

It will also probably won't play well with noise.

Are there any implementation of it in tensorflow yet?

<comment><USER5> I have one in tf, so I can confirm it is possible.

<comment><USER4> Cool. This mean that hopefully there will be some tf open source implementations in the future. I guess there is something I don't see. I'm intrigued, does your code run inside a single sess.run() so that it can be composed nicely? If so did you use a "special trick"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for this--science needs more writers who are able to distill complex subjects into clear and readable form.

<comment><USER7> Second this! Thank you for the wonderful explanation

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > y(x) = f(x,y), y(x0) = y0

If this is supposed to be the ODE definition, shouldn't it be y'(x) = f(x,y)? Otherwise I don't quite understand the definition of 'f'.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing this out. It is indeed a typo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> a quick intro to the concept is given by an author of the paper here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/a65v5r/neu...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/a65v5r/neural_ordinary_differential_equations_pdf/ebt11w6/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Can anyone comment on the relationship between this and the differential equations used by the connectionist neuroscientists back in the 1980's?</comment>


Moving to Singapore - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ghost.org/moving-to-singapore/ <comment><USER2> Seems the foundation did a lot of research on economic factors and Singapore is definitely appealing in that regard. In fact, a lot of businesses would do well in Singapore. A blogging platform is not one of them.

Let me explain:

"Ghost was previously subject-to and protected-by UK laws, so what's the deal when we go to Singapore? Remarkably little changes. As both a former British colony and a current member of the Commonwealth, the Singapore legal system is actually based on British Common Law. In fact, Singaporeans can actively vote in UK elections or run for UK office. They even drive on the left."

Singapore ranks 150th on press freedom [1], below Russia and Burma. The government owns the biggest media outlet and uses that power to control what is allowed to be broadcast or printed. You will become a blogging platform that cannot host blogs critical of the Singaporean government.

It seems to me that not enough research has been done on the premise of "where is it easiest for us to do business" rather than "where will our customers find the most freedom".

I would suggest, based on the freedom index rankings, to consider the Netherlands, New Zealand and Canada.

In fact the UK ranks very high on those 'doing business' reports (6th in the last report [2]). So maybe it's not the benchmark you want to use at all.

[1] - [https://rsf.org/index2014/data/index2014_en.pdf](https://rsf.org/index2014/data/index2014_en.pdf)

[2] - [http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings](http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings)

<comment><USER3> The utterly predictable "clearly you didn't research this properly and I know far more than you" HN commenter. You are so fucking boring.

No hackerboos, we didn't bother researching any of this properly seeing as we have very little vested interest in it, but you and your "anarchist2010" email address + 10 minutes of googling are clearly far better informed.

Cool that you'd suggest the Netherlands based on freedom of press rankings. The exact location where all our data is. Which was the main reason we cited when we moved all of our data there. A further 2 minutes of Googling would've turned that up, btw.

<comment><USER2> Why don't you just address the issue rather than go on a rant?

Edit: My 'ten minutes of googling' is actually several years living and working in South East Asia. I am well informed and aware of how authoritarian Singapore is.</comment></comment></comment>


Accelerating Hyperscale Datacenter Applications with Tesla GPUs - <AUTHOR> http://devblogs.nvidia.com/parallelforall/accelerating-hyperscale-datacenter-applications-tesla-gpus/ <comment><USER2> Despite the uninteresting title, this is a pretty large release from Nvidia.

Release summary:

* There are now Maxwell powered Tesla GPUs! The M40 is the K40/K80 upgrade, has 12GB of RAM and 24 SM's of compute capability 5.2. The new M4 GPU is a low power consumption Tesla that looks like it's targeted at video transcoding. The M4 has 4GB and 8 SM's (CC 5.2).

* Nvidia added GPU support to ffmpeg. This looks like it makes it significantly easier to encode videos on Nvidia's GPUs. I think this will work with any Kepler or Maxwell GPU.

* GPU REST Engine. This looks like a framework that maps REST requests into GPU tasks. I'm not exactly sure why these concepts aren't orthogonal, but the documentation suggests this is non-trivial because it balances work across multiple GPUs overlaps data fetching, data transfer, and compute.

* NVIDIA Image Compute Engine. An image resizing service built on top of GPU REST Engine framework.

* Nvidia is working with Mesosphere to add GPUs as a resource to Mesos. This will allow Mesos task proposals to request GPUs.

* There is some sort of better integration of CUDA with Docker now.

My thoughts on this:

* I'm interested to see the price point of the M4 since the "low power Tesla" is a new product for Nvidia. I'm interested in how it compares in price and power consumption to GeForce cards.

* GPU support for Mesos is exciting, because this + some non-trivial modifications to TensorFlow would be an awesome framework to train neural networks.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the summary.

Quick question on video encoding & transcoding - what is the best bang for the buck hardware for encoding or transcoding large numbers of of video streams? In the past when researching it, I got the impression that the dedicated hardware on Nvidia GPUs was only a small part of the die area so getting GPUs just for transcoding seemed like overkill. Similarly with CPUs there is Intel's QuickSync, but again that dedicated hardware is only a small part of the total processor die area.

<comment><USER2> I don't know much about video encoding (I have more familiarity with GPU computing from the neural net side).

I would figure out if you are looking for bang for the buck with respect to hardware cost or energy cost. The options for video encoding seem to be pure software on CPU or GPU, dedicated hardware on CPU or GPU (such as nvenc or QuickSync), FPGA, or maybe an ASIC if it exists.

If using CPU or GPU hardware encoding, I believe you could get better utilization by also running CPU or GPU software encoding at the same time (for GPU, this would involve writing an encoder using CUDA). For FPGA, you might be able license blocks that do encoding, and then fill up the FPGA with these blocks.</comment></comment></comment>


Any plans on selling Ycombo hats/t-shirts? - <AUTHOR>

I like the logo. <comment><USER2> We have them; we just don't sell them.

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/80819445@N00/1166586940/in/set-...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/80819445@N00/1166586940/in/set-72157601547542240/)

(That's Xobni founder Adam Smith I think.)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's nice, but I would prefer an all orange with just a huge white 'Y'. Just my preference.

<comment><USER3> <http://www.threadless.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Like this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Y_Combinator_Logo_400.gif>

<comment><USER4> cafepress.com</comment></comment>


The moral and ethical complexity of genetic research - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-14/college-or-funeral-is-mother-s-wish-denied-on-dna-results.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that there is a feeling in the community among many people that all genetic information should be freely available, which at this stage I feel is wrong. When people go to a doctor, they expect answers, and the reality is that in many cases the researchers just don't know. This technology is so new, relatively unproven and potentially dangerous that circumstances such as the one you describe are likely to continue to arise.

An interesting thought experiment would be, what if Mr Lyons had been wrong, and had claimed that the fetus was carrying the mutation when he was not? What if the test had been compromised and he had told the Mrs Grondahl that her child was going to be sick when she wasn't?

In this type of new research, the chances of the researcher getting it wrong are very high. It takes years for people to truly understand the complex nature of disease and its interaction with DNA.

With this type of research, I feel that we are going to see a number of incidences where the researchers do in fact get it wrong, and do a lot of damage by being cavalier with their findings.

Medical research moves slowly for a reason.</comment>


Monitor Linux servers and containers like never before, with netdata v1.8 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/firehol/netdata/releases/tag/v1.8.0 <comment><USER2> What exactly is "like never before"? Because it looks like typical charts from data collected from /proc, individually for each server, and we had that for more than a decade.</comment>


Google Voice for everyone - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/google-voice-for-everyone.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FMKuf+%28Official+Google+Blog%29 <comment><USER2> When everyone means the USA and Canada...

<comment><USER3> Make that, "just USA".</comment></comment>


How to write a 48-hour game in just 2 years (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.fistfulofsquid.com/blog/how_to_write_48_hour_game_in_2_years.html <comment><USER3> _" 48 hours later my iPhone was displaying a black screen with a white triangle on it. Clearly my limits were being tested."_

That reminds me of [http://rampantgames.com/blog/?p=7745](http://rampantgames.com/blog/?p=7745):

 _" In the main engineering room, there was a whoop and cry of success.

Our company financial controller and acting HR lady, Jen, came in to see what incredible things the engineers and artists had come up with. Everyone was staring at a television set hooked up to a development box for the Sony Playstation. There, on the screen, against a single-color background, was a black triangle.

"It's a black triangle," she said in an amused but sarcastic voice. One of the engine programmers tried to explain, but she shook her head and went back to her office. I could almost hear her thoughts… "We've got ten months to deliver two games to Sony, and they are cheering over a black triangle? THAT took them nearly a month to develop"_

<comment><USER4> Or for hardware projects, getting an LED to blink can result in great joy...

<comment><USER5> When writing compilers/interpreters, even good ol' "hello world" does it for me at some point(s...) in the development cycle :)

<comment> loup-vaillant My last mission (paid day job) involved writing a scripting engine (for a testing framework for programmable logic controllers). I'm no expert in language implementation, and it took much, _much_ more time than expected (oops).

My first hello world involved handling arbitrary primitives. This one just printed "Hello, world!\n" without any parameter. Took me 2 months I believe.

My second hello world came a couple weeks (days?) after that. I had string literals, and a `print` primitive that could print any string. Yahoo!

I had to tackle choice and iteration at some point. They were completed 4 months into the project. Finally, user defined functions. I completed them 1 week before we shipped…

Cool, I now have 3 days to implement 2 critical features! (filtering with user-defined predicates, and non-blocking wait). Good thing I could do anything, now that I had user-defined functions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've written many 48 hour games. I've also written games that drag on for months or longer without apparent progress.

The difference literally comes down to whether you are doing easy things or not. Having an engine or framework does help make a variety of things easy, but it does nothing for the one or two features that aren't. Eventually you hit a wall where it takes forever, and that's your next month. You get over the wall and then a flood of other new features come in almost instantly. Also in the same ballpark are features that you have coded before and are familiar with, vs. ones you aren't. You can get a lot done "from scratch" by spamming preexisting knowledge at the problem, but it still takes time and it isn't exactly easy either.

Last of all, at first clone-and-modify is enough to feel interesting. So you go very quickly, because you care little about the result. But after a few dozen times doing that, you're done, and you want to expand the parts you care about. That creates more barriers to get over, more months where progress is slow because your ambition is big enough to no longer follow the easy path. More months where problems are on the content development side, not the runtime. That part is always difficult. Scope is deceptive.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hi - author of the post here. Just a quick note - don't believe a word of this. I wrote it in 2013 and am now 3 years into the dev of the next game.

It's lies, all lies :) actually it's probably solid advice - the hard bit turns out to be following it.

The missing piece of advice turned out to be - "stay disciplined" ...

<comment><USER8> Thank you for this. Could you go into more detail on your time slicing strategy? I'd love to learn how to effectively do knowledge work in short chunks with frequent interruptions.

<comment><USER7> I generally try and have tasks of different types available for different moods (eg bug fixes, graphics work, marketing, etc). It's important for me to keep the momentum going though and even finishing a small thing is better than nothing.

Some things just require more time/thought though, so sometimes I have to shelve things and tackle them when I have more time.

Sometimes all I get done in 30 minutes is to make a decision about how to do something - this is still progress and feeds into the next spot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thank you for sharing this!

> Don't build an engine instead of a game

Only too true... That's a trap I _always_ fall into. I guess programmers are so hard-wired to abstracting problems they that need solving they end up doing a lot of abstracting and very little solving. (Compulsory xkcd: [https://www.xkcd.com/974/](https://www.xkcd.com/974/))

<comment><USER10> This is one of the reasons Unity has become so popular in the industry - <USER2> a project management point of view, it makes sure that programmers don't start yak-shaving and building tech that's already been built a thousand times by other people.

It certainly has its warts, esp when going into full production, but at least in early development it's really good at making sure you're only building what's unique to your game.

<comment><USER11> Yep; most likely you don't have Romero and Carmack on your team, who can make a great engine and a fun-to-play game, and even they switched to making engines to power multiple games (id Tech engines). Unity and things like it are great if you're serious about actually making a game and bringing it to market. Engines might be fun, but that's not what sells games and gets them into the hands of people who would enjoy them.

<comment><USER12> Even the tools and engines built by them took years to make. In fact, for a good chunk of the development of Quake, everyone was waiting for Carmack and Abrash to finish the engine.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, most good things take years to make. #universal-law

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I recently released my first real attempt at a small game beyond the asteroids clone scopd. And what I feel like I could do in 2 weeks. Took a full about a year. Several month breaks and many things just being tremendously more time consuming than projected. Fully appreciate and understand this. Part time game making is difficult especially for new game devs.

<comment><USER15> It took me about a year to teach myself how to clone Space Invaders.

Of course, on the way, I taught myself how to deal with spritesheets in SDL, move semantics in SDL objects, built a rudimentary entity-component framework, and basically had to learn how to do everything that SDL doesn't do for you.

I'm still working on my January Game a Month project, and a _lot_ of that time has been eaten up just getting the camera to work the way I want it to. I've deleted more code than I've written, and the end result is still not a game, but the learning experience alone is worth it. Some things that seem as if they should be simple (like efficiently dealing with text) turn out to be more complicated than expected, at least for me.

<comment><USER15> ... and by "I've deleted more code than I've written" I meant the amount of code I've deleted and rewritten so far exceeds the amount of code I currently have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Your experience sounds similar to mine. I used to write games from scratch in C/C++ and I would quit the projects after I wrote most of the engine code (which would take a few months), and had something presentable.

Back then there weren't engines like Unity and Unreal that solve most of the technical problems like rendering, and physics/collision detection. Even with these tools though, I still find it difficult to finish a project quickly because I spend so much time writing infrastructure code. For that reason I never do hackathons.

</comment><comment><USER17> It can take a long time just to get the opengl type programming understood. I've been studying this: [http://lazyfoo.net/tutorials/SDL/index.php](http://lazyfoo.net/tutorials/SDL/index.php) which I think does a terrific job explaining many of the important concepts while at the same time giving you useful outline code that you can use to quickly prototype your game. Best of all you supposedly can port this to many devices (it's an SDL tutorial).

</comment><comment><USER18> Here's a short video of QB1-0's gameplay: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVVnw2b-s1U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVVnw2b-s1U)

<comment><USER4> Very nicely done -- I was expecting something bare-bones, like the original. Just bought it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "By the time I'd downloaded the new version and fixed various issues it identified with the project format I'd run out of time and energy to continue."

Haha. About a year ago I went through 6 hours of updates to get a python script to create mouse and keyboard inputs (moving the mousing and typing to interact with gui apps). After that I called it a day and have barely touched the project since.

</comment><comment><USER4> > Always have the next task ready and divide the work up into little chunks. > The next time you find yourself with a bit of spare time you're all set and > ready to roll.

This is a great technique, but takes some discipline. Reminds me of GTD.

</comment><comment><USER20> I made my 'stupid' game - "Penguin Walk"[1] an year back over a period of three months. Like the author, there were periods of "I don't feel like working on it" but in the end, I pushed myself to finish it. Huge chunk of my time was wasted in resolving timing errors as I built it from scratch which could have been a better had I used a Game Engine.

[1]: [http://shubhamjain.github.io/penguin- walk/](http://shubhamjain.github.io/penguin-walk/)

<comment> loup-vaillant Ghaah, this fells like Flappy Bird! It's fair, but in a brutally unforgiving way.

Couldn't resist a couple minutes of playing. Good job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think to a good degree experience in the subject matter also comes into play with this. If your bread and butter expertise lies in a certain area and you were asked to write a small self-contained application in that area from scratch, you probably end up with something much closer to the goal than the white triangle on a black screen.

I found it very enlightening to sit through the almost full 48 hours of Notch programming some Ludum Dare entries which he streamed on twitch.tv. The end product is often very hackish, but that's exactly what this article argues could be a strategy to success. In any event, you can tell that he has programmed similar exercises many, many times in his life because certain things that would take me days to get right, he just writes down more or less without thinking.

Not writing your own engine is also a recommendation that can be seen from two sides. Of course, for a lot of us, it is tempting to go and try writing a re- usable, nicely abstracted and modular piece of software. But for a 48h jam, that can often be the wrong direction, because you get side-tracked writing your nice game engine and meanwhile forget to actually write the game.

However, at the same time, referring back to the aforementioned videos by Notch, he likes writing everything from scratch and not use a pre-existing engine because it can give you full control over what you can do and how, which for a 48-hour jam might be what you want.

(Notch and these videos have been the subject of discussion on HN many times before, so there's probably no point to going down that road here again. I personally find it sad that he doesn't seem to stream any more programming vids.)

</comment><comment><USER22> I got a similar story for a mod I am working on in factorio. Unfortunately, I have yet to see anybody using it in any real capacity(including myself, ironically).

The reason is simple, I believe? Nobody knows how to use it beyond myself.

Even if that isn't the case, I still need to work out a tutorial anyway.

</comment><comment><USER23> > Despite your experience you really aren't going to build a MMORG. You really > aren't. You're never going to finish it.

I did and it was my first game. The sentiment definitely holds true for most though.

</comment><comment><USER24> I've been developing my game for more than a year now and I still only have a placeholder sprite sheet walking around in a test room. I'm currently developing a modular ui system and will continue working on gameplay after that(except probably not). Why is framework development so bloody fun?

</comment><comment><USER25> I just made a little iOS game too! Actually this time I managed to stay on track and get everything done in about 1 month. I honestly don't know how I did it, but it's really fun to finish a project. [http://boopsboopsswoops.com/](http://boopsboopsswoops.com/)

</comment><comment><USER26> "Know when to stop" <== This really cracked me up because it's not only true but also put in such an eloquent expression.

</comment><comment><USER27> Starting a project or prototyping a project is easy. Finishing a project is hard. Finishing a game is especially hard.

</comment><comment><USER28> I could swear you were talking about me. Good post!

</comment><comment><USER29> Really fun game!</comment>


Testing Linearizability with Jepsen and Evergreen: "Call Me Continuously" - <AUTHOR> https://engineering.mongodb.com/post/testing-linearizability-with-jepsen-and-evergreen-call-me-continuously/ <comment><USER2> It is surprising that not so many companies do as they do at MongoDB. Maybe because of the burden which needs to be taken to integrate a third-party tool for testing. Yes it costs resources but as MongoDB proofed - it pays off. I need to deal with many DBMSs. MongoDB has by far the least amount of patches - this in depth testing is surely one of the reason for this good result.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like the mindset of reaching out to an external, unbiased resource to assist in continuous integration and improvement. The outside perspective helps to prevent confirmation bias in your internal testing processes and let's your users see an open, neutral, and transparent picture of your capabilities.

</comment><comment><USER4> I enjoyed this writeup. It's good to know the software we depend on for our companies data is tested to this extreme.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you have any questions about getting Jepsen to run in your CI, or setting up Evergreen, let us know.</comment>


U.S. withdraws from UNESCO - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/10/12/u-s-withdraws-from-unesco-the-u-n-s-cultural-organization-citing-anti-israel-bias/?utm_term=.58bf9540fceb <comment><USER2> At first I thought it was more Trump bluster, but the article makes clear that the US stopped funding UNESCO in 2012 because of admission of Palestine as a member state and resolutions made naming Israel as an occupying power. For this, UNESCO is labeled as "Anti Israel." Since the US stopped paying, it racked up a $500m+ unpaid bill, and withdrawing is some way to avoid payment. However the US will still stay on as an observer and participate in discussions.

I'm frustrated that we won't honor Palestine as it's own state. I believe a people ought to have the right to self determination.</comment>


Ask HN: Adjustable height desk recommendations? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for a good quality, somewhat budget friendly (< $400) sit/stand adjustable desk.  I've searched around and found some options. But I'm interested to see what folks on HN have gone with. <comment><USER2> If you're asking for sit/stand, not necessarily adjustable, grab one of these:

[http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90087541/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90087541/)

And pair it with a bar stool. I've done just that and it's got me standing more often than the 5x more expensive adjustable solution would have done. That's assuming the default position for the adjustable would have been down. Which it would have been for me. It's sturdy, compact and tidy when coupled with the under-desk cable-tidy (just fits diagonally).

I've lost the comfort factor of the big chair and desk, but I've gained a more active default position. It's also easier to wham the treadmill under the desk when I'm feeling lively.

Folks, I do _try_ not to be a tragic startup cliché.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been using this for the last few months:

[http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/bed...](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/bedroom/19087/)

While its not really designed to be a standup desk, it works quite well for me. I only use it for a couple of hours or so a day though.

</comment><comment><USER4> I used one of the Ergotron line of mechanically adjustable sit-stand desks for a long while. They're pretty good - I've subsequently changed to a full-on powered sit-stand desk because I can fit more monitors on it, but the Ergotron did the job.

</comment><comment><USER5> Its a little out of your price range, but these are really nice: [http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S29022488/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S29022488/)

<comment><USER6> Just bought one of these for home last week $593CAD + sales tax (~ $457USD)

It is certainly good value, and a fraction of the price of the one I had for work a few years ago (different brand totally). It can feel a little flimsy/wobbly when raised, but certainly not dangerously so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been using this for the lat month:

[http://www.varidesk.com/standing-desk-pro- plus-36](http://www.varidesk.com/standing-desk-pro-plus-36)

Best of both worlds.</comment>


The Ronco Principle - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/ronco.html <comment><USER4> This reminds me of _The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing_ [1], in a funny way (bear with me).

In pricing, if you have features in common with other vendors then those features are commodities and basically valueless. But the features you have that no one else has - those make you priceless.

For example, S3's uptime record makes it a different product than e.g., DreamObjects, even though they are API compatible.

Similarly, while VCs are all providing the ultimate commodity product (dumb money), its the features which no one else has that make investors like Ron Conway priceless. There's plenty of other VCs, but they are not substitute products for Ronco.

Finally, the way to find these unique, priceless features is to look for extremes:

        - Cloud hosting with not just 99.99% uptime, but 100% uptime
        - Email inboxes with not just a lot of storage, but *unlimited* storage
        - Photos developed not just faster, but *instantly*
        - A VC with not just a great track record of doing the right thing, but a *perfect* record

And as a consumer, these are the companies you want to do business with: the Rackspaces, the Ron Conways, and the Stripes of this world.

[1] If you read one business book this year, make it The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing. If you don't think a book on pricing can change your life, you haven't read this book. Protip: get an older edition and save a ton of dough.

<comment><USER5> Qeorge, I also recommend Principles of Pricing by Vohra. I'm taking his class right now at Kellogg, fascinating stuff.

[http://smile.amazon.com/Principles-Pricing-Analytical- Rakesh...](http://smile.amazon.com/Principles-Pricing-Analytical-Rakesh-Vohra- ebook/dp/B00H7WPE6E/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421788333&sr=1-1&keywords=principles+of+pricing)

<comment><USER4> Thank you so much Brian! I'll start reading it right away.

The class sounds great as well, and I hope you enjoy it. If you find yourself compelled to share anything in particular, I'd be very interested to hear it. Maybe you could do a blog post?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "And yet he's a super nice guy. In fact, nice is not the word. Ronco is good."

So good he supports torture [http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2014/12/09/ron-conway- bla...](http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2014/12/09/ron-conway-blasts-sen- feinsteins-torture-report/)

<comment><USER7> It is uncharitable and silly to believe that a good person could not have those positions in good faith. You may disagree with it, but "torture is sometimes permissible" is not an evil opinion held exclusively by evil people.

<comment><USER8> I think the only way it is possible to hold it "in good faith" is to be unconsciously bigoted. That is, you don't realize you're a bigot, probably because you haven't examined your underlying beliefs.

To see this most clearly, try to imagine a situation where you would find it acceptable for an American soldier to be tortured by some foreign power.

<comment><USER9> First, thank you for providing a thought experiment that challenged my own beliefs on the topic. Something like that is rare.

Given the social climate surrounding the issue, it seemed appropriate to switch to a throwaway. I'll strive to keep the discussion interesting and thought-provoking.

I'd like to followup with you and get some insights. Thinking over your example leads me to conclude, "There is no such thing as what's 'acceptable,' only what's effective."

Do you feel that's true, or off the mark?

<comment><USER10> Torture has been shown repeatedly to not be "effective" \- people will say literally anything to get it to stop.

<comment><USER11> This makes it useless for getting a confession to a crime with no corroborating evidence. However, if you have a method of independently verifying the information you get, you can get useful information.

Note: I oppose torture, but effectiveness is orthogonal to my opposition. Something can be effective and still evil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well that is an interesting point of view.

My experience so far( early 30's) has been exactly the opposite, most people/bosses I've meet that were successful in business were complete assholes, with several nice people working for them exclusively for the money.

That has in fact made part of my life very miserable because I really don't expect anything from anybody anymore. If been tricked/robbed/scammed so many times by people I trusted that my trust is mostly gone for now, and I only expect bad things from people when I depend on them for something. (If something good happens it's awesome, but I don't count on it)

Maybe I trust people more than I should have done, maybe it's the place I live... I don't know.

<comment><USER13> Don't take this the wrong way, but if everyone you are encountering is screwing you...you have some hard questions to ask yourself.

My experience has been that when someone "only expects bad things from people when they depnd on them" it means one of 3 things.

1\. They have a hard time accepting responsibility and taking ownership of their own problems.

2\. They are running with a really bad crowd, and need to go to the library to make some new friends.

3\. They project an image that lets people walk all over them.

Everyone has problems that come up in their life, but if you haven't experienced nice people as being the norm... there is a better that 66% chance its something YOU ALONE CAN AND MUST CHANGE.

<comment><USER12> Not taken, but don't get me wrong. I don't mean friends/family/coworkers. I've got plenty of those that I can and have trusted.

I mean Bosses and people that I've done business with on a you pay me level. In those cases there was almost nothing I could do besides filling a lawsuit and spending large amounts of money, time and sanity. I settled with the understanding that they had the upper hand and I was a fool for trusting my money/time to them.

One case:

Owner "Shit you are leaving??? Who is going to do XXX? Can't you stay at least until xxx so we can deliver xxx and save our asses? That is our only client right now."

Me "Hum... I really need to start next week, but I will do my best"

I stayed for one month more that I needed in contract, my new employer was pissed but agreed with it. In the end the Owner didn't pay me my leave that was due and was agreed to be paid and delayed the pay of that last month for 15 days. I had to threaten them with a lawsuit to get that last month payment.

For me that is about people being scumbags.

But valid points nonetheless.

<comment><USER14> That sucks. I thought I was the only guy who had to have those kinds of experiences. :-)

In my case it was years ago, and since then my situation has improved dramatically. The things that seemed to help were:

1) Identifying the kinds of people I worked well with in the past and pitching those kinds of people on projects (I did some of this by learning the Meyers- Briggs function stack, which unfortunately doesn't have an _axis of evil_ but is otherwise helpful in finding new clients who are somewhat similar to clients I liked in the past; ENFPs are a perennial favorite)

2) Identifying non-profits and other less rip-offy types of clients and showing them how I could help them

3) Saving enough money that I didn't _have_ to work with any given client

4) Establishing firm policies like "You will pay 100% down if X and Y conditions are not met or do not apply, or if the total is below $N; otherwise 50% down and 50% prior to delivery"

5) Doing background-checking on all new clients, especially if they have fired one of my kind before (I usually call up the fired guy).

#4 really rides on your reputation, so you may wish to have references on hand to give to potential clients.

I'm celebrating my ninth year as a solo freelancer in rural California and things couldn't get much better, so I hope this helps you somehow.

<comment><USER12> Thanks you. I will think about those points.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My albeit limited experience suggests to me that there's a U-shaped curve with super-rich / powerful / "effective" people. One end of the curve is "pathological sociopath," and the other is "extremely benevolent."

I don't have enough experience to tell you which side is higher than the other, though the fact that we do not live in some kind of absolute hellhole suggests that the curve is tipped toward the right (benevolence). Yet I do get the impression that it's one extreme or another.

The sociopaths do tend to burn themselves out eventually though. There seems to be some kind of what's effectively karma, which probably comes from peoples' lies eventually catching up with them. It's overall better to be benevolent.

<comment><USER16> If PG is right, then sociopath's will be fairly indistinguishable from nice people.

True sociopath's don't care about your feelings, either positively or negatively, they just care about advancing their own agenda.

If the best way to advance their own agenda is by being nice to people, then that's what they'll do. That's what vegabook got mercilessly downvoted for saying.

And as PG said, lies are really expensive, so smart sociopaths won't use them.

So maybe Ron Conway is a sociopath. But who cares why he's doing so much good? What matters are the results, not the inner reasons.

<comment><USER17> I'd like to see more nuance to the argument.

What does 'nice' actually mean? It's famous for being a low-entropy word.

In fact not everyone agrees that Conway is 'nice', or that everything he does and says is good:

[http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/09/eruption-over-sf-housing- an...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/09/eruption-over-sf-housing-and-google- breaks-out-at-next-big-thing-conference/)

Or even:

[http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2014/12/09/ron-conway- twee...](http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2014/12/09/ron-conway-tweets- support-of-cia-torture)

So it matters whether or not Conway or anyone is a sociopath, because IMO the only useful definition of 'nice' is an inclusive one. The more inclusive, the better.

Being a charming marketer while benefiting yourself, your network, and primarily yourself and your network, doesn't make you nice, it makes you an exemplary professional.

There _is_ a difference, and it's not a trivial one.

<comment><USER18> That Ron Conway SF housing debate clip is so mellow, I mean, only a west coast millenial could call that an eruption. ;-)

But seriously, I am all for challenging the notion that anyone who defends torture is "nice." However, if that is an example of Ron Conway angry, he really is one of the nicest dudes I've ever seen. They are discussing a topic that matters, and where ideas matter. Regardless of who is right, it is much more "not nice" to allow flawed thinking to propagate in matters of public policy, and shouting from the back of the room may be the "nicest" thing a person could do. An asshole would just snicker to himself and count his money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This seems to be the follow up to [http://paulgraham.com/mean.html](http://paulgraham.com/mean.html) where pg refines his argument.

I'm glad he did, I felt that his "Mean people fail" essay to be one of his weaker essays, and judging by the comments it got when it was released so did pretty much everyone else on hacker news:)

I tend to agree with him that good people get further along in life. In my industry, finance, I tend to see that the good people do much better than the assholes, contrary to what hollywood would have you believe:)

I think the reason for this is similar to what pg pointed out, finance is a very information and relationship driven business, the better caliber of friendship you cultivate the more people there are who will give you the first call, or preferential treatment on new issues.

<comment><USER20> My gut feeling is that personalities are not fixed, and there are feedback cycles in action here. For example, I find it believable that the more successful a person becomes, the less likely they are to feel a bunch of emotions that might cause them to behave unkindly (e.g. desperation, jealousy, and so on).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> > But if Ron's angry at you, it's because you did something wrong.

An example of Ron Conway being angry at someone (video at the bottom of the article): [http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/09/eruption-over-sf-housing- an...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/09/eruption-over-sf-housing-and-google- breaks-out-at-next-big-thing-conference/)

Disclaimer: I don't know enough about the personalities, politics, finances, or economics involved to have a substantive opinion on the matter under discussion.

</comment><comment><USER22> This felt similar to me to the academic world. I'm a lowly graduate student, but one thing I've been consistency surprised by is the way the most senior people in the field are often the nicest. Sure—there are assholes everywhere. But when you hear horror stories of a professor mistreating their advisees or writing horrid reviews or submitting trash papers, they are often the junior folk. Partly because this behavior doesn't pass muster in the community, and so people who act this way don't get tenure; partly because senior professors have tenure and thus less to lose by acting nice; and partly because, just as I think in the startup world, being nice actually carries large benefits. In fact, I might argue that recognizing the benefits of niceness—valuing future rewards, trusting other persons—requires intelligence, so that maybe nicer people are in fact more intelligent as well.

But maybe that is Berkson's paradox: I'm more likely to hear about mean or successful researchers, so they appear anti-correlated even if they are in truth independent.

<comment><USER23> This is a general principle; the meanest people are, as pg once put it, "the nervous middle classes" on a status hierarchy:

"Another reason kids persecute nerds is to make themselves feel better. When you tread water, you lift yourself up by pushing water down. Likewise, in any social hierarchy, people unsure of their own position will try to emphasize it by maltreating those they think rank below. I've read that this is why poor whites in the United States are the group most hostile to blacks."

"If I remember correctly, the most popular kids don't persecute nerds; they don't need to stoop to such things. Most of the persecution comes from kids lower down, the nervous middle classes."

[http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html)

<comment><USER24> In this case, though, I would object to this idea of bullying being a bad strategy. I think the general consensus of literature on adolescent bullying in US and US-like countries, including some not, like Japan and China, is that bullies are among the most popular people in the school context.

There are also studies showing that bullies experience protective effects against some psychological issues, such as social anxiety and loneliness.

Also, both bystanders rate bullies as the most popular people, and they also list them as the most _desirable_ people (victims do too, which is very unintuitive).

Also very interesting: bullying behaves like a social position, with people moving in and out as bully one year, but not the next, whereas victimhood is more stable, like an identity, and may persist from school to school and to online social contexts.

Here's what I'd like to know. Since I haven't read a shred of literature on adult workplace bullying, I'm curious to see if _bystanders_ still behave the same way. Because if they do, that means backstabbing, mudslinging, and office politicking are still vibrant strategies, because it's bystanders who bring the rewards of bullying. The people emote to the tyrant emperor their whims regarding an office gladiator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Yes Mr Graham, many people are just "nice". It is weird that you sound so surprised. Perhaps it would be worth moving out of the money circles. Unfortunately, in my experience there is a correlation between those who are genuinely nice, and the people who are wealthy. Afraid to say, the correlation is negative. Ronco must be very nice indeed.

> _If you can 't tell who to be nice to, you have to be nice to everyone. And > probably the only people who can manage that are the people who are > genuinely good._

No, being nice to everyone is not being nice. It's being a liar. Nobody likes everyone (though there are many kind souls - few in positions of power - <USER2> try hard). The only people who are (superficially) nice to everyone are the ones who are in it for themselves. And that's not nice.

</comment><comment><USER26> Anyone interested in reading more on this topic should check out Adam Grant's Give and Take.

Incidentally, one of the interesting takeaways from the book is that if you look at plot of people mapped to career success, you'll find that benevolent givers dominate -both- ends of the distribution. The theory goes that those who are in the left tail got there by being too preoccupied with others' needs, to the exclusion of their own success. Conversely those in the right tail got to where they are both by helping others and by consistently asking others to help them. In the latter scenario these folks have harnessed benevolence as a strategy for career growth, and the collective goodwill "out there in the ether" nets out to measurable success over the long-run.

<comment><USER27> Excellent summary and thank-you for the book recommendation.

The first chapter is conveniently available as a free PDF from the book's site.

It seems like something for those people who are grinding away, doing good work at a great value for their investor/employer/client/customer, but remain underpaid and undervalued; a sort of self-defeating benevolence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've heard YC has an internal VC review database (somewhat alluded to in the 2nd footnote). I'm curious, has any consideration been given to making it public or semi-public? Or at least to publish a list of "The X best-rated VCs/seed funds/angels" every once in a while to gamify better behavior?

<comment><USER29> Exactly my thought. The scatterplot he mentions in Footnote 1 seems uniquely in their wheelhouse.

<comment><USER30> It is in their wheelhouse, but this information is probably deemed to be part of the "secret sauce" which would be hard for any "information economy" company to part with.

<comment><USER28> Agreed. That said, I think sharing a "top 50" list would be helpful to the community + encourage good behavior for investors who want to get on the list, but at the same time the full list would be even more valuable and would be proprietary to YC and its alumni.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I thought this was going to be about Ronco, as in Ron Popeil's infomercial products company.

<comment><USER32> I definitely thought pg had written about the slogan, "Just Set It and Forget It" before clicking through to the post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Let me just state that like people with autism I have a mental illness that affects the social part of my brain. It makes it hard to make friends as I lack people and social skills. It gave me an advantage to make me high functioning enough to learn programming at a young age and work with math and science better than average.

I am not a mean person, when people get to know me I am nice. But I have few friends because I lack social and people skills. I cannot seem to emotionally connect with people and what friends I have are also with a high IQ that I connect to intellectually.

When I worked, I worked with some mean people. They found high functioning coworkers of mine and pretended to be their friend and then stabbed them in the back and forced them to quit because they were competition. They took credit for their work and then decided to target me next. Calling me a nerd and geek, making fun of me, bullying and harassing me even with threats of violence trying to force me to quit. I ended up stressed out and developed a mental illness and was forced on disability.

Based on Linkedin those mean people who did all of that still have their jobs. They have social skills and people skills and use it to manipulate people, and then black-stab them and climb the corporate ladder of success. Until they make it to management where they can bully and harass people to do their jobs. All the while keeping their dark side hidden.

If you ever worked for Steve Jobs, you would say he was a jerk, he was abusive to his engineers to get things done just right. He had anger problems too. But he had the social skills and people skills to be well liked. There are a lot of people like Steve Jobs out there.

I'll most likely never work again due to my mental illness, but I am not a mean person, I don't treat people with disrespect, I don't bully and harass them. But due to lacking people and social skills, I'll never have enough friends to become a success.

<comment><USER34> Sorry about your illness, but I don't understand why it would keep you from ever working again?

<comment><USER33> After 911 there is a medical background check, once a company learns I am mentally ill I get the rejection letter that says "overqualified" that rejects me.

I had a hard time trying to find work, with a history of being mentally ill on the records and my background. Most people hide it and don't see a doctor and go undiganosed because of the social stigmas of being mentally ill.

I happen to suffer from schizoaffective disorder which is rare less than .05% of the population has it. It is like bipolar and schizophrenia combined.

When I did have a job as soon as they learned I was mentally ill from my communications, I was bullied, harassed, and picked on, and then eventually fired when I had a panic attack from the stress.

I am sure if I found the right company that wouldn't treat me that way or understand mentally ill people and don't let their employees pick on, bully, and harass them.

I used to earn $150K/year as a programmer, but now they say that is too much money to trust to a mentally ill person. In all honesty it was never about the money, I just loved programming and happened to become good at it in Visual BASIC and Active Server Pages, which are 13+ years out of date now. But I still try to keep up and learn.

My wife doesn't want me to relocate, or else I've have worked for Google in 1999, and I might have avoided the stresses I had that made me mentally ill in 2001. So I am sort of stuck in St. Louis MO and what companies there are here to work that don't like mentally ill people working for them. We tend to drive up health care costs for their insurance and when they think of disabled people they think of people in wheelchairs not the mentally ill. They tried to justify firing be by having a software contractor work $100/hr to do my job while I was in a hospital claiming that none of my coworkers could operate at my level of work. This fits the undue hardship clause of the employment law.

I had about three employers do that to me in a row, and my doctor put me on disability because I couldn't get a stable job.

I was usually hired to debug software to get a company to the next level. I optimized ADO recordsets, SQL Server tables and stored procedures, optimized Crystal Reports reports, and fixed broken Visual BASIC code so it wouldn't crash the machine and it runs faster. I also did web development in Active Server Pages using VBScript and HTML and CSS and JavaScript.

But like I said, no company wants to hire me now, and if they did it would only be temporary to use me to get to the next level and then fire me after I got them there. I feel like a third stage rocket booster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> "Good does not mean being a pushover. I would not want to face an angry Ronco. But if Ron's angry at you, it's because you did something wrong. Ron is so old school he's Old Testament. He will smite you in his just wrath, but there's no malice in it."

... like when smiting everyone who doesn't work in Tech or agree with him in SF by subverting democracy?

This is an example of where PG has a bias and we part ways.

Keep writing essays about software, and I promise I'll try to learn LISP, PG! ;)

</comment><comment><USER36> Silly me, I thought this essay was going to be about Ron Popeil ([http://www.ronco.com](http://www.ronco.com)).

Cue the obligatory Weird Al reference:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BX56syrmWQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BX56syrmWQ)

"It slices.."

"It dices..."

"LOOK AT THAT TOMATO!"

"You could even cut a tin can with it, but you wouldn't want to!"

Ah, good childhood memories.

For those who might care but don't know, Lisa Popeil (Ron's half sister) sang backup vocals on that song. Pretty funny.

With apologies to anyone too young to know about Ronco TV commercials ("Now how much would you pay????")

:-D

<comment><USER37> Me too, I was expecting some kind of Malcolm Gladwell style realization based on some quirky thing Ron Popeil did in his infomercials!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> It is no coincidence Ronco is the most coveted Angel in the Valley - <USER3> epitomizes integrity. This value is the most desired aspect an entrepreneur will strive for in finding early stage investors. We, especially in the early stages of building our company, need people who will do the right thing.

I remember one example of Ranco's unyielding integrity: [http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/24/angelgate-ron- conway-...](http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/24/angelgate-ron-conway-rips- despicable-and-embarrassing-investo/)

</comment><comment><USER39> I wonder if pg's view of top investors as 'good' or, maybe more accurately, consistently moral has changed since he has gotten to know more of them personally? Not a charge of corruption or cronyism, but sometimes one has different standards for friends than for people one doesn't know.

<comment><USER40> Conversely, one might not realize that "famous investor X" is actually a really awesome, caring human until getting to know them in person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> So, I'm trying to see whether this applies to us in academia, whether the "nice-but-no-push-over" types are more successful than the sociopaths. Unfortunately, I can't think of one either in real life or from anecdotes shared with me.

I think it's different when the system isn't run on money, but pride.

EDIT: Actually, I am able to think of one. It is of worth to note that he is pretty clever and a natural born talent and was a child prodigy.

</comment><comment><USER42> Terrifying thought: what if the causality goes the other way? What if all the bad are bad because "that's just the way the business works" and "hard choices"?

</comment><comment><USER43> I think working hard also helps with luck. Here's a story. This goes back to the first ever tc discrpt Hackathon. I was a 19-year-old college student then. I used to go to this NYC resister hackerspace in brooklyn.

So we are doing our hack - a bunch of nyc resistor dudes - it's about 10pm. Here comes Ron Conway with Michael Arrington - checking out the hacks. They come to our desk. See the scrapy robot with wires coming out of it. And here Ron hands over a couple of business cards to our fellow hackers.

I was a total noob back then. I was just like these two guys are checking some stuff out. Without knowing who they were.

While other investors would be out enjoying their weekend, Ron was out on a Saturday night meeting hackers. Even after so many big wins he was out in the trenches to source the next big thing.

</comment><comment><USER8> This article is dumb because it doesn't explain why Ron Conway is so good. Maybe this is written for a silicon valley insider audience that knows what he does that is so great. It feels like pg's writing was more interesting when he was the outsider taking on the status quo.

<comment><USER44> Part of it is that he has his fingers in every pie, and a contact list that contains pretty much "everyone" that matters in tech in SV, and he's not shy about using it to help connect people to make things happen.

Part of it is that he is very good at coming across as likeable, and charming. I would hope that is representative of how he is, but I've only met him once, briefly (as he had a tiny amount invested in a company I was involved with) so for me I'm going by first impressions and reputation.

Basically he's done favours for a massive amount of people in SV (by pulling strings and connecting people, and making a massive amount of small-ish investments) and been nice and charming enough that most of those people, and many more who know him by reputation, would drop whatever they're doing pretty much instantly if he called to ask for a favour partly because he comes across as a nice, likeable guy that you'd like to help out, and partly because they know by reputation that he's likely to return the favour if/when you need it, and the odds are it will be well worthwhile for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> > If you can't tell who to be nice to, you have to be nice to everyone.

This (more or less) works the opposite way, too. Taking an example I know about, in Brazil, you can't often tell who is going to try to take advantage of you (in business) but enough people have tried in your past that you come to the conclusion that everyone will at least try in the future, and therefore you act accordingly.

It's really frustrating to have to treat people with your guard up when signing a contract or talking through specifics during a deal, but you learn to recognize advantage-takers and even to pretend you are one, too. In doing so, the other person will recognize they can't pull the wool over your eyes either, which puts you both on a 'level' playing field.

This isn't just something I've experienced but also something I've been told by many others in Brazil. There's even a 'law' about it, called Gérson's Law [1], which essentially states "if there's an opportunity to take advantage, go for it".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9rson%27s_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9rson%27s_law)

</comment><comment><USER46> I think, even though it's a bit sad, the assumption that mean people won't be successful, is incorrect.

For the assumption that success is correlated with how kind someone is, there are just too many examples of previous and current startups/CEOs that are/were hugely successful. Actually, my impression is that there are very few of those, who I'd consider genuinely good people that I would really trust.

The thing is, you can be a really good person or you can be an a-hole, you will enter an industry or create a startup that will fit your personality and then it just comes down to IQ and persistence of how successful you will become. This way, a bad/nasty person can create a startup or make money just as much as a really kind person can. In other words, you can create a huge startup either way, the valuations would be the same, irrespective if you are a good person or not.

However, the startups would also be completely different in nature. The nasty startup would be always fighting, receive bad press and its employees would be led by fear. The good startup would be awesome, change an entire industry for the good and its employees don't work for the money, but because they are inspired by its mission and by its CEO.

Both startups would be huge and probably end up having the same valuation, just that their nature is different.

For that reason, as a founder you need to ask yourself what kind of founder you want to be. You can be nasty or you can be kind and awesome. It "doesn't matter" what side you choose, you will be equally successful either way.

However, you need to understand the implications and if you want to be a person that makes people worries or the person that inspires people and creates good in the world.

You can be good or bad, you'll still be successful, however, after you have built the startup, 10 years after you have sold it even, it's the way of how you did it that counts.

</comment><comment><USER47> I must say, Paul Graham is a really good writer. His posts are very eloquent and convey interesting ideas without extraneous fluff. Too often people credit famous individuals with talents they don't actually deserve, but in this case the quality stands independent of the fame.

</comment><comment><USER48> The problem with this as a strategy, and problem is a strong word, is that it is _insanely_ hard to replicate.

I can happily not steal money or diamonds all day long, I can always not persuade a founder to sell me his stock for pennies because deep down being dishonest is not how Mrs Brian raised her children.

But not dishonest is different from _good_. Good is active - not bad is passive. I know people who have righteous anger on their side - they actually find dishonesty offensive, something in need of fixing. Conway sounds like that - someone who goes past not being bad and over to trying to fix a world gone wrong.

Good is a hard balance - you need to know right from wrong, and believe that if you confront wrong, the world has your back.

Scary

Like I said, hard strategy to follow.

</comment><comment><USER27> This Ronco Principal, as Paul describes it, reminds me of a vision for a world in whereby the contract of a business deal is second to the word of your partners & colleagues. Where honor, trust and values trump contracts, laws and lawyers.

Why? Not only is this hypothetical business world a more natural and less expensive place to do business, but another advantage is that un-invited third parties can't easily interfere with your deals.

Some might say that defining terms on paper creates a record that can be used against you.

Shaking hands and trusting in your partners that they will follow through on their word - that type of deal is more difficult for the state to compromise, exploit, or create laws against.

</comment><comment><USER49> Interesting thoughts. The basic idea, it seems, is that people help out those who they like, and people generally like good people. So, it would seem that the amount a person benefits from being a good person is directly related to how much they depend upon relationships with other people. In the VC world, which is massively relationship driven at the moment, I could see how being a likable person would be extremely beneficial. But perhaps, then, the Ronco principle isn't that good people succeed, but that likable people succeed.

</comment><comment><USER50> I view this in the light of the Prisoner's Dilemma.

In a one player game, it pays to be nasty. It only pays to be nice in an ongoing game.

Ron Conway seems to have been playing the ongoing game long before increased transparency made it fashionable, and has reaped the benefits of it. I have never met him, but he seems to be the one guy people universally acclaim for support, integrity and doing the right things. It's easy to see why he's Call #1 for folks seeking an angel, and he's the call who entrepreneurs take.

</comment><comment><USER29> _[1] I 'm not saying that if you sort investors by benevolence you've also sorted them by returns, but rather that if you do a scatterplot with benevolence on the x axis and returns on the y, you'd see a clear upward trend.

[2] Y Combinator in particular, because it aggregates data from so many startups, has a pretty comprehensive view of investor behavior._

Why can't YC, of all firms, publish this scatterplot? Wouldn't it hold people accountable in a way that nothing else would?

<comment><USER51> First, because there's no objective measure of benevolence, and second, because ranking VC's on a spectrum of benevolence vs. malevolence would strain the relationship between YC and these VC firms. You get a lot more traction making general statements like pg does here than you do by calling out individual firms.

<comment><USER29> Asking YC companies to crowdsource benevolence is hardly earth shattering. I'd be surprised if they don't already. The difference is offering this guide as a public resource. The risk is that firms could still treat YC companies well then treat others less well, but as pg notes, this type of duplicity is hardly worth the trouble.

<comment><USER51> It just seems like a distraction. YC probably has more important things to do than becoming the US News and World Report of venture capital.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I was really hoping this was about Ronco, Ron Popeli, or something related to that business. It's too bad because Ronco is an interesting business story in its own right.

</comment><comment><USER53> I am amazed it is OK to say "the CIA saved American lives" as opposed to "the CIA saved lives". Are American lives worth more than non-US citizens' lives? Would it be permissible for 9/11 to happen if the only people who died were undocumented immigrants? What a shitty person and what a shitty attitude! I guess Paul Graham is a shitty person if he associates with shitty people like Ronco.

</comment><comment><USER54> "I'm not saying that if you sort investors by benevolence you've also sorted them by returns, but rather that if you do a scatterplot with benevolence on the x axis and returns on the y, you'd see a clear upward trend." PG/YC, have you tested this hypothesis? Precision would be difficult, but a back of the envelope attempt could be interesting and perhaps reveal unexpected correlations.

</comment><comment><USER55> Reminds me of The Evolution of Cooperation, sounds like Ron is a nice strategy with a solid retaliation response... How is he with forgiveness?

</comment><comment><USER56> I think the Beatles had this principle down when they sang "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." Clearly, they had to make it fit a lyric, but I think the idea is very similar.

Sometimes when I hear stories of mean people getting ahead I wonder how accurate the sentiment could be. Its good to see a case where doing good over time results in success.

</comment><comment><USER57> A book about the related, long-term trend of decrease violence explained with different angels:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Natur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature)

(Religious extremists, totalitarian regimes notwithstanding.)

</comment><comment><USER58> The world of business has a reputation for being full of assholes, yet perhaps the most successful businessman of all is Warren Buffett, who seems like a genuinely nice guy. It seems that acting with honesty and integrity pays excellent returns in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER59> > "there is a clear trend among them: the most successful investors are also > the most upstanding."

This is also true in many aspects in life. Good people are rewarded, not always, but more often than not deserving people are successful and happy.

</comment><comment><USER60> I see transparency in markets and governments as a "movement" in the making. My hunch is the next 10-20 years will be very interesting in this regard.

</comment><comment><USER61> Is being nice a choice? I don't think so, it should be the default. But if I need money for my startup I would definitely go with the nicest investor.

</comment><comment><USER62> More generalized, compassion and integrity seem to be in a positive feedback loop with drivers of technological and economic growth.

</comment><comment><USER63> TLDR:

The Ronco Principle: In a sufficiently connected and unpredictable world, you can't seem good without being good.

</comment><comment><USER64> A bit surprised article with so little "content" gets so many upvotes.

</comment><comment><USER65> > In a sufficiently connected and unpredictable world, you can't seem good > without being good.

Sometimes might be surprised on this point!

Some people in some relatively small, conservative, apparently highly ethical, responsible, competent, serious, and hard working communities manage totally to _pull the wool over the eyes_ of just about everyone else, including the members of their own families. They can look totally like a sweet, angelic _church lady_ while, actually, plotting against others and slowly but effectively sabotaging them.

How? One way is to be a very talented, determined, bright, mentally energetic actor/actress. The act can take a lot of mental energy to negotiate all the daily events and situations while keeping the _act_ totally believable while actually it is totally false.

There's more on such things in the now famous E. Goffman, _The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life_.

Sorry, PG, there's a fundamental problem here: As in some recent research (wish I'd kept the reference), already in the crib, the girls are thinking about people and the boys, things. While the boy is trying to hack the latch on the crib and install Linux in the toy firetruck on the floor, the girl is trying to elicit protection and care taking from adults, especially her father.

"If a girl is smart, she doesn't have to have brains." and can get others, especially Daddy, to do things for her. A boy might work and work and work, say, to get his iPhone synchronized with his MacBook while his sister can get it done with just one frown and one tear, and often don't need the tear.

A girl can be really good at it, by age four have Daddy totally wrapped around her little finger and manipulated so that he can never tell her no. And, in later years, she can get much better, much, much better at it.

They can be highly talented and very mentally energetic and seem to be sweet, darling, adorable, precious angels while they are actually determined, selfish, even dangerous, masterly manipulators.

Never ask a nerd male to evaluate the real, inner thoughts or intentions of a masterly female -- he just doesn't have the basic qualifications for the job!

You just learned this lesson here for $0 tuition. I paid full tuition, and you don't want to do that; trust me this time! Uh, there are no college loans nearly big enough to cover the tuition I paid.

For Ron Conway, I can't forget his short advice to entrepreneurs in the Sam Altman course at Stanford last fall -- "bootstrap". Okay, message received loud and clear!

I do believe that PG can evaluate Ronco; good to know I can take Ronco's advice seriously!

<comment><USER66> I agree about the general position that girls are more socially focused, but you put a sad and cynical twist to it...

<comment><USER65> Not all girls are as "sad and cynical" as I described.

But the statement I was responding to was

> In a sufficiently connected and unpredictable world, you can't seem good > without being good.

So, this statement seems to claim to apply broadly. So, I just said essentially that the statement claims too much, that, for some counterexamples, there are people with behavior that contradicts the claim, e.g., some females, say, adults, using some of what they learned as children, starting even in the crib.

I didn't claim, and don't believe, that the behavior I described, say, that you are describing, appropriately, as "sad and cynical", is common among either males or females. But to counter PG's quite broad claim, I just need some, say, _counterexamples_ ; I've seen too many of them.

More generally, from some of what I saw. in a very "connected world", some of the complexity of _Presentation of Self in Everyday Life_ can be just astoundingly involved and complicated -- some very bright, determined people work really hard at such _presentation_.

I would add, a very "connected world" can lead to more complexity, posturing, manipulation, difference between reality and _presentation_ , etc. than a less connected world. E.g., a person from such a more connected world can feel much better, and act much more like themselves, posture, pretend, and manipulate less, in a big city where they have some anonymity. _Presentation_ in a "connected world" can be one heck of a lot of hard mental work!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Love this. Viva Ron Conway!</comment>


Ask HN: Which is your Linux desktop distro of choice in 2020? - <AUTHOR> Key requirements, seamless to get up and running and regular upgrades. <comment><USER2> The requirements seem a bit thin. They also echo the cliche that the main end- user problem with Linux is installation. I think this hasn't been the case for many years - in the simplest case (no dual boot, a well-supported machine), installation and initial setup is usually dead simple.

The real problem is usually troubleshooting post-install problems. There are a myriad of sources of advice, often mutually contradictory, constantly changing, and frequently with a weird underlying air of hostility towards questioners.

I'm not an expert but by no means a complete novice, and I frequently have issues I just can't fix (eg. right now I haven't been able to discover why my laptop just won't stay asleep).

As far as just getting up & running is concerned, I've had no problems with either Fedora or Ubuntu.

</comment><comment><USER3> For me, I have a lot of systems and do try different flavors but generally Ubuntu is my go to since it "just works." 19.10 (not an LTS release) includes nvidia support out the box so you don't even need to deal with nouveau.modeset=0 [1]

[1] If you dealt with this you know what I mean haha ;)

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been using Debian (Unstable and Testing) for approximately 10 years and have been very satisfied. However, I intend to stray away from the ominous *d soon. FreeBSD interests me, but I've been procrastinating, and of course, that's not Linux.

I have setup Debian systems over the years for a handful of people, all who've been pleased, so far - and these are first time Linux users. I do, however, spend a lot of time configuring and customizing their setups, typically with Mate as the DM.

I'm not quite sure what seamless means, so pardon me if my ¢2 isn't relevant.

Edit: maybe worth mentioning that I've run Arch, Slackware, PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu, Mint and one or two others. I settled on Deb. The one distro I'd (personally) advise against is Ubuntu. While it had a rather glorious beginning, it ultimately devolved.

</comment><comment><USER5> Pretty much any popular one will do. All of them will be simple to setup (with Debian and fedora needing extra steps for non-free driver/codec). And the regular updates in the distro are getting less and less important due to:

Flatpak / snap / appimage on the app side.

Projects like Ubuntu lts enablement stack [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack)

Things are getting really smooth and simple these days.

</comment><comment><USER6> OpenSUSE Tumbleweed with KDE Plasma desktop. It is a rolling release and so it is very up to date. And if something goes wrong with an update (happened once in 2 years) there is root filesystem snapshoting via BTRFS can roll back to the state before update. Also I like the Yast settings manager and OpenSUSE has one of the best KDE apps support. So these are the main reasons for using it as my main home and work GNU/Linux desktop.

</comment><comment> blaser-waffle Fedora. Works out of the box, very (too "very" in some cases) up-to-date packages, and one of the two platforms supported by Steam / Valve -- been gaming on Linux w/ Proton for a few months now and it's grand.

I also do IT for a living at a shop that runs exclusively RHEL, so it's an easy choice.

I still have Mint on an old laptop I use as well, works fine, no reason to change it. Have used Ubuntu, OpenSuSE, Debian, and Gentoo in the past. Considered Arch and Manjaro but there isn't enough pull to get me away from Fedora.

If I didn't plan on gaming or running it on a laptop I might consider the latest FreeBSD.

</comment><comment><USER7> I used Antergos before, and switched to EndeavourOS after the former was discontinued. I really like Arch's flexibility, and while the regular Arch setup is fun for the first couple of times, after a while I'd rather just get it over with.

<comment><USER8> Same here. Used Antergos before and after the project ended, I used Fedora for a number of months, but recently switched to EndeavourOS. Arch is just so flexible--I find it easier to install the things I need.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lubuntu on an old laptop because it just works and is nice enough. I find it less irritating than Fedora.

Batocera because I'm exploring easier ways for emulation and this seems okay, but there are probably better choices.

</comment><comment><USER10> Mint MATE

Simple uncluttered desktop.</comment>